Newfoundland and Labrador has an enduring Irish culture, which is why we go all out celebrating St. Patrick's day, but some of our Irish history is really quite mysterious, stretching back thousands of years...

There’s one place I’ve always wanted to visit on St. Patrick’s Day. Not because I expect to find a jolly little leprechaun with a bountiful pot of gold, but because it's the closest you can get to Ireland right here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Rooms' Junkosphere exhibit, brainchild of artist and dancer/choreographer Nicola Hawkins, is a commentary on how we create, process and throw away all the junk from our accumulated lives - and the impact it has on our fragile environment.

It's not often that mere mortals can afford to stay in the same luxurious lodgings where royalty once slept. And when those accommodations also boast intriguing links to the ocean liner Titanic, the chances seem remote indeed.

I might have mentioned once or 300 times that I grew up in central Newfoundland, and yet my jaunt around the area this past summer had many surprises in store. That’s what happens when you live somewhere for 18 years: you start taking things for granted.

Last weekend, hundreds upon hundreds of people in St. John’s paraded through the streets. Men were dressed as women, women were dressed as men. Underwear was worn as outerwear and even small children were merrily sporting bras stuffed with socks over the tops of their various layers. There were lots of ingeniously creative hobbyhorses prancing around and it was almost impossible to count the number of ugly sticks and accordions.

The first time I saw folk trio The Once, I was sitting in The LSPU Hall – the historic downtown theatre in St. John's – watching Feast of Cohen, an annual concert where local artists gather to perform their own versions of Leonard Cohen songs.

I for one tend to get a bit twitchy when November starts to gallop towards December and public places set their sound systems to Jingle Bells 101. So I find it helps my Christmas spirit (or lackthereof) to remind myself of the good things about the season. The things that don’t involve frantically running around malls full of people mowing you down to get better spots in cash register line-ups so long there should a surprise pop-up concert by Adele waiting at the end.

We’ve all said things like “that meal just changed my life.” And if you haven’t, well… you might want to take a serious look at what you’re eating. I’ve eaten lots of meals that have changed my life. I probably overuse that phrase, but that’s how much I love food. There’ve been a few recipes (especially over the course of this past year) that I’ve made again and again for friends and family that I love and yeah, I think they’ve changed my life. They wake me up a little, they make me better. So… yeah. But the closest I’ve come to food tears was a couple of months ago at the Roots, Rants and Roars Festival in Elliston.

St. John’s is a city that has been on the go for over 400 years. That’s a whole lot of life, death, love, murder, passion, intrigue, treachery and… did I mention death? That’s a whole lot of history, spilling out into the twists and turns of the narrow streets. No wonder it’s a hotbed of hauntings.

Lauren Suarez, a 17-year-old high school student from Greenwood Indiana, recently travelled to St. John's for the first time with her mom and her mom's best friend, Laura. They stayed with Laura’s relatives who made the experience so unforgettable that Lauren wrote to tell us how completely she fell in love with Newfoundland & Labrador and its people.

Karen Moores is a cities-focused travel writer who calls St. John’s, Newfoundland home. She is proud of her city’s commitment to historic preservation while retaining a hip, modern vibe. Check out her insider tips to the Canadian city.

Of all my travels around Newfoundland this summer, visiting Prime Berth Heritage Centre in Twillingate was one of my most memorable experiences. An interactive, interpretative centre created by David Boyd as a tribute to the culture and heritage of his fishing forefathers, Prime Berth is hard to miss as you're driving across the causeway...

We took a short trip with friends to Newfoundland this week and had the sort of memorable time that everyone talks about whenever they return to Moncton from a visit to St. John's, a city like no other in Canada.

I recently returned from a visit to St. John's, Newfoundland, North America's oldest and most easterly city. St. John's is known to be saturated with Irish traditional and Celtic rock music, but for a smallish city on a fairly remote island, I was surprised by its many other live music offerings.

As our trip to Newfoundland stretched out before us, I knew I would blog about it and I knew instantly that the theme would be gratitude to the people of Newfoundland. So it’s serendipitous that in the last few days I started reading so many words of thanks to the people of Newfoundland from the stranded passengers of 9/11 who were taken into their homes and made to feel like family.

I spent last week getting culturally back in touch with my English Lit student days. First, I went to see Hamlet on a hill, then Henry IV, Part 1 out in one of North America’s oldest and most historic towns, Cupids...

Last week I went to catch the final performance of Hamlet – one of the 2011 Shakespeare By The Sea productions. I realize writing about this festival when it’s already happened and you can’t now go and see the shows (if you unfortunately missed them) is a bit of a tease, but I’m hoping this post will encourage anyone out there who’s already thinking about a 2012 trip to Newfoundland and Labrador, to plan on seeing a performance or two next year.